Deathblow
by Silver Tongued Wonder
Summary: In a place where there is no warmth or value, everyone becomes the lowest of the low: a killer. An account of Haymitch's last battle in the arena with the girl from District 1. One-shot. Rated T for violence.


**A/N: **Hey everyone. This is a bit intense. Not for the faint-hearted, I'm afraid. But then again, _The Hunger Games _in itself isn't for the faint-hearted. Anyway, don't expect it to be all rainbows and butterflies. It was so intense that I had to take breaks from writing it. lol. How about a joke to warm us up?

**Q: **What did the Avoxes say to President Snow when he told them that he loved them?  
**A:** Nothing! Because Avoxes can't talk!

Lame, I know. Onwards, then.

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. The story and its characters all belong to Suzanne Collins, no copyright infringement, yada yada yada.**

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**DEATHBLOW**

She peered through the maze of tightly woven hedges, cloaked by a thicket of wildflowers and concealed by the shadows. Her bloodshot eyes were trained on Haymitch as he stood before the Cornucopia. The girl couldn't tell whether Haymitch knew she was there or not. He didn't show any signs of acknowledgement. He just stood there nonchalantly, his back to her, sharpening his long and deadly knife with a rough stone.

Weighing out her options, the girl from District 1 eventually decided to finally get the action on. She was at least half a head taller than Haymitch and just as fast, so what did she have to lose? If anything, when she got crowned for her victory in the Games, she would be known as the most aggressive and wondrous victor to ever grace the arena. Cool beans.

"Thought you'd never show," Haymitch said suddenly when the girl stepped out of the woods. His tone was cool and measured, but it nevertheless surprised the girl. She had thought she would get the chance to catch Haymitch off-guard with a sword in his back. No worries, though. _If fun's what the boy wants, fun is what he'll get, _she thought.

"I always show," said the girl, smiling wickedly. And though Haymitch couldn't see her, he could hear the elation dripping from her words. It was disgusting.

Haymitch scoffed. "Let's get it over with, Crystal," he said as he turned to face her. He stopped sharpening his knife suddenly. The bright colors of the setting sun glinted off the blade of Crystal's axe, and Haymitch couldn't help feeling a little sick in the stomach. He hadn't yet accepted death in the arena, but now seemed like a good time to do so.

Crystal grinned evilly, tightening her grip on her axe. "I thought you'd never ask."

The way she had almost snarled the words sent a tickle down Haymitch's spine, but it had triggered something else inside of him. Anger. His hand closed tightly around his knife's handle, and his other hand loosened its grip on the rough stone he'd used to sharpen his knife. It is on.

The stone dropped, landing with an audible thud on the ground, and by some unspoken agreement, the sound signified the beginning of the battle. Like a bell ringing in a wrestling ring, it initiated the match.

The two opponents simultaneously leaped at each other, weapons raised in the cool dusk air. The knife came in contact with the axe with a loud clank. Both Crystal and Haymitch's arms were weakened by the recoil of weapons, but quickly they gathered themselves and were vigilant as ever.

Crystal raised her axe and quickly swooped it down, slashing Haymitch's shins. He let out a groan of pain and took the advantage of her close proximity to stab her. He'd been aiming for her heart, but she shifted and the blade ended up burying itself in her shoulder. The girl howled and clasped her shoulder, briefly checking the wound. It wasn't a deathly blow, but it was a painful one for sure.

Haymitch yanked the knife out, satisfied. It had felt as if he had driven the knife in between the ball and pivot of Crystal's shoulder. Just as he had taken a safe step back, Crystal's axe was closing in on him again. He ducked and it passed over his head, cutting off part of his dark black curls. He took another chance and jolted his knife toward Crystal's stomach. She was quick, however, as she grabbed the knife's blade with one hand and shoved it away. Blood gushed from the fresh and open wounds in her palm, but she willed herself to clasp her axe tighter, despite the pain.

Crystal swung her axe again, and Haymitch felt the painful sensation of ripping flesh, and then it stopped with a crack. Crying out in pain, he glanced down and found that his left forearm had been cut down to its bone, which now had a dent in it because of the axe.

Outraged, Haymitch landed a whopping punch on Crystal's face, sending her staggering backwards. She flew and crashed on the grass with a cut-off groan, the landing knocking the breath out of her. Seeing that she had let go of her axe, which was now lying innocently five feet away from her, Crystal ignored the pain emanating from her seemingly broken nose and crawled for her only weapon.

Haymitch yelled a murderous battlecry as he toppled over Crystal, restricting her movement. He gripped his knife and raised it, aiming for her heart. Quick as Crystal was, notwithstanding, she caught the knife mid-stab and fought with all her strength to keep it away from her. The two tributes groaned and yelled as they hardened their clutches on the knife that would deliver anyone's deathblow.

By some fortunate (or unfortunate) burst of strength, Crystal managed to roll Haymitch over. When he collapsed on the ground, she jolted upright and careened for her axe. Haymitch was right on her heels, however, and when the axe was only three feet from Crystal's reach, he tugged on her leg, causing them both to tumble over.

Haymitch was on top again, and he didn't wait anymore. He barely blinked as he plunged the knife down, diving it deep into Crystal's right eye. The action shocked the both of them. Haymitch hadn't meant to stab her eye. Actually, he wasn't aware at all that he'd taken a stab at her. It was just his great desire to go home and win that had brought the involuntary action.

Crystal screamed, the deathly pain in her eye socket taking its toll on her. She couldn't believe there was three inches of metal _inside _her eye. As much as Haymitch should have celebrated the great injury he'd inflicted on his opponent, he was disgusted. Disgusted with the eye, disgusted with himself. He jerked the knife out of the eye, but to his great dismay and to Crystal's greater pain, the eyeball had stuck to the knife. Just like that, the eye that should rightfully be in Crystal's eye socket was skewered by Haymitch's knife like a piece of meat on a kebab.

Crystal was shrieking out. She was close to losing her mind. But she wouldn't allow herself to enter the deep end yet. No, she vowed to win the Games before anything else. So, with renewed strength, she reached upward for her axe while Haymitch was preoccupied with getting rid of the eyeball that was fully through his knife.

Crystal extended her arm, reaching out until her fingertips brushed the axe's handle. Hurriedly, she dragged it closer to her until she could grip it, gathering her strength and lifting the weapon up. With a loud cry of vengeance, she sliced the knife out of Haymitch's hands. He let out a yelp of surprise as, suddenly, he found that he was now weaponless. But before he could retrieve the knife that had gone who-knows-where, Crystal slashed a wound three inches deep into his stomach.

He yelled and rolled off of Crystal, hoping his hands could find his knife before Crystal's axe found his heart. But the sun retreating away, leaving the sky only faintly illuminated by the white moon, didn't help his search at all. His weapon was no where to be found.

_Death, here I am, _he thought, but then he caught himself. He'd promised himself he would not go down defeated. He would win this, alive or dead. He would go down fighting. Or he wouldn't go down at all. But what else could he do? There was no hope left for him to tug on. After Crystal would collect her breath and strength, she would finish him off right then and there. End of story. There was nothing Haymitch could do anymore with his bare hands and a gaping stomach wound that probably exposed his intestines.

Slowly, Haymitch felt himself hanging off of consciousness. He knew he was only a punch away from knocking out completely, possibly forever. He was hanging onto that last ledge of life that he had. He was on the cliff of death.

_Cliff. _The word echoed in Haymitch's mind. _Cliff. Cliff. Cliff. CLIFF. CLIFF!_

The single word kick-started Haymitch's entire system. His blurry eyes cleared and he jolted to a sitting position. _Yes! His cliff!_ That would be his saviour! He didn't have anymore time to think about it, because Crystal had just gathered herself and she was sending her axe down toward Haymitch again. He rolled off with a scream and pushed himself up on two wounded legs, and then he took off.

He was more staggering through the woods than running, the throbbing in both of his cut shins and the open stomach wound hindering any other progress. However, hearing Crystal's murder-hungry panting behind him was enough to fuel him to run faster.

Moonlight filtered through the canopy of leaves and branches, glinting off Haymitch's determined and world-weary eyes. As he ran, gusts of cool air blew past him, and for a moment—just one moment—he wasn't in the arena anymore. He was running across the streets of District 12. Running with his father in the middle of the night, laughter wafting through the air like a breeze during summertime. The flashback sent a ripple of renewed vigor through Haymitch's body as he thundered past the woods, breaking into the clearing. And there was his cliff, his saviour.

He crashed down on the ground with a groan just as Crystal let fly her axe. The weapon whizzed past his head and flew over into the abyss below. Now weaponless, the girl simply stood there, her hands desperately halting the bloodflow from her empty eye socket, thinking she can outlive Haymitch peradventure.

Convulsions rocked through Haymitch's body, pain his new constant companion. There was no room in his mind anymore for anything but acknowledgement of the great pain emanating from the wounds on his shins, his left forearm, and of course his stomach. The only consolation he had was that the axe would come right back and land on Crystal's skull. He hoped.

"Death's coming," Haymitch moaned weakly.

Crystal half-smiled, pleased with her situation. Her eye or the lack thereof was only a relatively little wound, whereas the one she'd inflicted on Haymitch was fatal. "Well, well. I've got to say, you were a strong one," she said mockingly. "I'll miss you, Haymitch," she added with a sneer.

"Not _my_ death, you fool," Haymitch said through gritted teeth.

Crystal only looked down at him with an evil smile. She was too busy pitying this boy that would surely die first to notice the axe that was flying back toward her. It flew over the ledge again and landed with a sickly _crack _atop Crystal's head, her body crumpling down to the ground seconds later.

The cannon reverberated through the clearing and Haymitch let out a snort. He'd won the Hunger Games. Despite the relief that was flooding through him, he felt sick. No, not just sick. Depressed. Because lying there in front of him was the dead body of Crystal Reprierre, girl from District 1, with her skull wide open in a gaping trench. She'd died with her eyes open and a sneer across her face.

It seemed to Haymitch as if she was mocking him, because he no longer knew why he had so fervently tried to fight for his life. Emptiness swirled inside of him. There was nothing waiting for him back in District 12, anymore. Nothing but a dark corner of an overly vast mansion where he was almost certain he would rot in forever.


End file.
